Can You Change Korean Air SkyPass Partner Awards After Departure?

In the interest of full disclosure, One Mile At A Time earns a referral bonus for anyone that’s approved through some of the below links. These are the best publicly available offers that we have found for each card. Please check out our advertiser policy for further details about the partners we work with. Thanks for your support!

What makes Korean Air SkyPass awesome?

You can redeem these miles for Korean Air first class between the US and Asia, and award availability is wide open; you can even do a stopover in Seoul Incheon on a one-way award ticket

You can redeem SkyPass miles for first class on China Eastern, China Southern, and Saudia, and these first class awards are wide open, given that Delta SkyMiles members don’t have access to international first class awards

SkyPass allows very long holds, often up until only a few days before departure

SkyPass has very reasonable change and redeposit fees

Anyway, the point of this post isn’t to talk too much about the program in general, but I figured those were some useful points to make for anyone who isn’t at all familiar with the program. Simply put, there’s not another program that has so much saver level first class award availability between the US and Asia, and the redemption rates are reasonable to boot.

The one catch of SkyPass is that you can only redeem miles for you and your family members. You can’t redeem them for friends, non-married spouses, etc.

So I booked the outbound for a few weeks ago, and then the return for the end of the year. One of the reasons I did so was because I had hoped that the electronics ban would be lifted from the Middle East to the US, so I wanted to minimize my odds of being impacted by that. Fortunately that paid off, as the electronics ban has indeed been lifted.

There’s only one slight problem. I recently booked a cheap business class ticket from Mexico City to Easter Island, and only after confirming did I realize that I had planned my return from Dubai to New York on Saudia for just a couple of days after I returned to Mexico City. Sure, I could have quickly gotten to Dubai and then flown right back, but that wasn’t ideal.

So my goal was to change the date of the return ticket, though I wasn’t sure if that was allowed. I’ve never done that before with SkyPass, and different programs have different rules when it comes to changing partner award tickets after you’ve already flown the outbound.

Can you change SkyPass partner awards after departure?

I wanted to keep the same routing from Dubai to New York for a more convenient date, so I found the award availability I wanted online. Saudia first class is so wide open on miles, so finding availability wasn’t an issue.

Then I phoned up the SkyPass service center, and got a great agent. I told her the date I wanted to switch to, and she confirmed those flights were available. “Do you want to make the change?” “Yes please.”

She said “okay, it’s all done,” and before she could finish the sentence, the email with the new flights was in my inbox. There was no fee or anything, but she did warn me that the policy had changed as of August 1, 2017, and that there was now a 30,000KRW (~27USD) fee for changing tickets, but she made an exception since it was my first change.

Seriously, I don’t remember the last time changing an award ticket was that easy. So the great news is that you can easily change the date of your return after you fly the outbound, which is good for those who want to book a SkyPass partner award one-way, but aren’t yet sure when they want to use the return portion.

But then I decided to push my luck again and see if they’d let me change my return destination after flying the outbound. Could I change my Dubai to New York flight to a Dubai to Los Angeles flight?

I phoned up SkyPass again, got the same agent (I’m pretty sure there’s only one agent per shift in their US SkyPass office), she confirmed the flights were available, and within five minutes she had my ticket changed. This time I was charged the ~27USD fee, which is very reasonable.

Caviar in Saudia first class

Bottom line

This is great news for anyone looking to book a Korean Air SkyPass award. Often I’m just trying to book a one-way award, while SkyPass requires a roundtrip ticket for partner airlines. So as long as you use the whole ticket within 12 months of when it’s issued, it’s super easy to make these changes. Not only can you change the dates, but you can also change the destinations (as long as you’re otherwise following SkyPass rules).

If you’re in a similar situation and not sure when you want to return yet, I recommend booking the return date as far out as possible, and then closer to the date you can easily make a change.

With this change it also means I’ll be able to luxuriate for nearly 30 hours in Saudia first class… talk about a cleanse!

Last year Qatar eased their visa requirements a bit, allowing travelers from select countries visiting for 5-96 hours to receive a free transit visa. I remember prior to that having to pay a significant amount to enter Qatar, even if just entering the…

For those of you not familiar with Amex Offers, it’s a program available through most Amex cards, where different cards are eligible for different savings and bonus offers. In many cases the offers can be huge, and more than offset the annual fee on…

More from One Mile at a Time

I’m a points geek. There are few things that make me prouder than finally ticketing an exciting and complex award itinerary. After the initial excitement wears off, the next thing I always do is calculate the redemption value. Anything above 5 cents…

Aeroplan miles are often touted as an attractive redemption option for intra-Canada flights, domestic U.S. travel on Star Alliance partner United, and for reasonable cost Star Alliance business class flights to Europe. Those are all fine uses; just make…

Last November, Air France-KLM announced some major changes to their FlyingBlue loyalty program. They're describing this as FlyingBlue being "reinvented," and most of the changes kick in as of April 1, 2018. I've already covered most of the changes in…

Earlier today I wrote about how American had plenty of first class award availability on their flights to Hong Kong, out of both Dallas and Los Angeles. Given how stingy American is with award availability nowadays, that was pretty rare. American does…

Historically American has been extremely stingy when it comes to saver level award availability on their own flights. Their only international planes featuring a three cabin first class product are the 777-300ERs, and these only fly to select international…

One of the best uses of Air France/KLM FlyingBlue miles is booking their Promo Awards. FlyingBlue publishes these every month, and they offer 20-50% off select award tickets on Air France and KLM metal. Back in the day Promo Awards would consistently…

About luckyBen Schlappig (aka Lucky) is a travel consultant, blogger, and avid points collector.
He travels about 400,000 miles a year, primarily using miles and points to fund his first class experiences.
He chronicles his adventures, along with industry news, here at One Mile At A Time.

Regarding Comments: The comments on this page have not been provided, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser, and it is not an advertiser's responsibility to ensure posts and/or questions are answered.

Comments

So does this mean you will try Saudia’s first class again and in the LAX route? if so I recommend you go to riyadh instead of jeddah. The LAX flight is SV41 Riyadh – Jeddah – LAX so I recommend starting your next SV first class trip from Riyadh since the new Jeddah airport will not open until maybe mid 2018.

@Lucky- I have a question about skyPass bookings for KE flights. I’m currently ticketed/booked one way BKK-ICN-IAD in F. I’m thinking about changing it SIN-ICN-IAD. The change doesnt seem possible online. Can I call and can they do this on the phone?

Recent Trip Reports

In the last installment I reviewed the Singapore Airlines first class lounge that I had access to, and in this installment I wanted to look at the Singapore Airlines business class lounge, which can be accessed by Star Alliance business class and Star…

In the last installment I mentioned how I ended up using the Air New Zealand Lounge Sydney Airport first. That's because the Singapore Airlines SilverKris Lounge doesn't correctly publish their opening times -- the Singapore Airlines website suggests…

I spent just one night in Sydney, and decided to head to the airport really early the next morning, even though my flight was just at 12:15PM. That's because I wanted to review the Star Alliance lounges at the airport, and I always feel more comfortable…

Having flown Singapore's previous generation business class seat, I couldn't wait to see how their brand new business class seat compared. I boarded through the forward door of the upper deck, where I was immediately greeted by several crew members,…

Recent Posts

It's no secret that some countries make it especially lucrative to invest by offering fast tracks to citizenship either through buying property or living in the country for a minimal amount of time. One of the countries that consistently ranks near the…

In the last installment I reviewed the Singapore Airlines first class lounge that I had access to, and in this installment I wanted to look at the Singapore Airlines business class lounge, which can be accessed by Star Alliance business class and Star…

It's pretty normal for airlines to try to differentiate their onboard product, even if it's in economy. For example, earlier today I wrote about how Air France's new ad campaign focuses on how they offer free food, entertainment, and champagne in economy.…

I’m a points geek. There are few things that make me prouder than finally ticketing an exciting and complex award itinerary. After the initial excitement wears off, the next thing I always do is calculate the redemption value. Anything above 5 cents…

Meet The Team

One Mile at a Time is owned by PointsPros, Inc. This site is for entertainment purposes only. The owner of this site is not an investment advisor, financial planner, nor legal or tax professional and articles here are of an opinion and general nature and should not be relied upon for individual circumstances.

Advertiser Disclosure: Some links to credit cards and other products on this website will earn an affiliate commission. Outside of banner ads published through the Boarding Area network, this compensation does not impact how and where products appear on this site. While we do try to list all the best miles and points deals, the site does not include all card companies or credit card offers available in the marketplace. Please view our advertising policy page for additional details about our partners.

Editorial Disclosure: The editorial content on this page is not provided by any entity mentioned herein. Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.